Investors

A group of dissident Walt Disney Co. investors said they will recommend corporate governance changes to directors of the Burbank entertainment giant, but declined to specify what the proposals would be. Providence Capital said it had organized a meeting at its New York offices of 36 institutional shareholders holding from 10% to 15% of the company's shares, but declined to name any of them.

Though investors' thoughts might drift to turkey and football in the coming week, such diversions are unlikely to crowd out questions about the sustainability of the recent run-up in stocks -- and whether Wall Street is likely to enjoy its usual year-end rally. Not surprisingly, the week is expected to be light on economic and earnings data. However, some investors will be looking for signs of how well consumer spending might hold up as the holiday season has its official start.

Fidelity Investments said Monday that it reopened its Magellan fund to new investors for the first time in more than a decade as the Boston-based mutual fund company seeks to capitalize on a turnaround by manager Harry Lange. Magellan beat 82% of rival funds last year with the $45-billion portfolio posting its highest return in 14 years. Lange, 55, who replaced Robert Stansky as Magellan's manager in October 2005, steered a significant chunk of money overseas and into technology stocks in 2007.

A monthly survey of individual investors by brokerage UBS and the Gallup Organization finds them more pessimistic than at any time since the survey began in 1996. Highlights from the latest survey, which questioned 1,000 investors selected randomly nationwide from Feb. 1 to Feb.

Warren Buffett, a legendary investor and one of the world's richest men, is advising caution to those tempted by the stock market's stampede higher. He described the market as overheated in his annual letter to shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. investment company, according to a report by Dow Jones News Service. "You can, of course, pay too much for even the best of businesses," Buffett wrote in his annual report.

Good-looking corporate earnings reports are sparking tremendous stock price gains once again--in the process re-energizing the market's "momentum" investors, who feed on and abet such lightning stock moves. There are two important messages in this frenzy. First, it shows that corporate earnings are getting better and that investors are responding to them, as they should.

Warner Music Group, the giant music company bought this year by a group led by Edgar Bronfman Jr., said Monday that it would return $350 million to its shareholders. Warner, whose artists include Green Day, Madonna and Linkin Park, said it had extra cash to return to investors as a result of the company's improved balance sheet and lower-than-expected restructuring costs.

Despite rallying stock and bond markets, mutual funds took in less new cash from small investors in March than in February, the funds' chief trade group said Thursday. But this month buyers have returned in greater numbers, many fund companies say. The Investment Company Institute reported Thursday that net new cash flow into stock funds dipped slightly to $7.2 billion in March from $8.6 billion in February. Bond funds, meanwhile, saw a net $3.7 billion flow out in March, up from February's $1.

Lenovo Group Ltd., the Chinese computer maker that agreed to buy IBM Corp.'s personal computer unit for $1.25 billion, is in advanced talks with several private equity firms to invest in the company, people close to the situation said. Hong Kong-based Lenovo is in talks with Texas Pacific Group, General Atlantic and Newbridge Capital, which plan to put up a total of about $350 million to take a minority stake in Lenovo, the sources said.

Investors poured a net $177.5 billion into stock mutual funds last year -- the most since 2000 -- with a record amount funneled into funds that buy stakes in foreign companies, a report showed Friday. The Investment Company Institute, a trade group for the fund industry, said in its report that the inflow was the fifth-highest on record. Investors profited by steering more of their money into mutual funds that concentrate on foreign companies. Global funds rose 18.